Wednesday, March 19, 2014

drag2share: Mod Puts Your Paper Notebook Doodles Into the Cloud

Source: http://gizmodo.com/mod-turns-puts-your-paper-notebook-doodles-into-the-clo-1546699400

Mod Puts Your Paper Notebook Doodles Into the Cloud

Sketching, jotting, or doodling in a paper notebook is one of life's simple joys, but more often than not we end up just tucking those notebooks away and never looking at them again. Mod Notebooks wants to change that, with a setup that digitizes your dead tree designs.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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drag2share: Haha, these super short 3D animations about a tiny world are so cute

Source: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/haha-these-super-short-3d-animations-about-a-tiny-worl-1546947580/@caseychan

Haha, these super short 3D animations about a tiny world are so cute

I wish these 3D animation shorts were a full movie. Called Tiny Worlds, it shows miniature sized characters and machines solving normal sized problems. Cigarette flicked on the ground? A tiny submarine will blast it away. Matches left on the street? A mini semi truck will haul it away. Gum on the sidewalk? Let's call the small bulldozer. It's super cute.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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drag2share: Unity 5 game engine brings advanced lighting, physics and audio effects to mobile, PC and now the web

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/18/unity-5-game-engine/

At the Game Developers Conference, or for those in the know: GDC, we got a taste of the new Unity 5 game engine. For most of you, a new engine doesn't mean much, but in the hands of the right people, it can mean more beautiful and realistic games. Unity, which powers any number popular titles, especially on the mobile front, is getting a host of new features for version five. Most notably is a new physics-based shader system and integration of Geomerics Enlighten illumination tools -- that means more realistic lighting and shadows as well as console-caliber visual effects. The engine's audio pipeline has also been rebuilt from the ground up for better performance and more flexibility when it comes to mixing sound and adding effects. But perhaps the biggest addition is early access to WebGL support, which means you'll be able to build titles that work on iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, OS X, Windows, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, WiiU and any modern web browser. As an example, Unity will be demoing Dead Trigger 2 running on WebGL at their booth at GDC.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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drag2share: Samsung's interchangeable-lens NX mini sports 1-inch sensor, fits in your pocket (hands-on)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/18/samsung-nx-mini/

Hey "style-conscious" men and women in your 20s and 30s, Samsung's got a new camera just for you. The electronics giant is touting its NX mini as the world's thinnest and lightest interchangeable-lens camera, and while it technically falls at the low end of the company's NX line, this new cam comes along with a 1-inch (smaller) sensor and a scaled-down lens mount, which means new lenses, though you can use larger NX glass with a $150 adapter. Without a lens, the camera weighs 158 grams (5.6 ounces), making it lighter than "some bananas" (the fruit), as Samsung demonstrated with a PowerPoint slide during a presentation earlier today. There's a 20.5-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, WiFi, NFC, a 1/16,000 max shutter speed, 25,600 top ISO, 6 fps burst mode, 1080/30p video, a battery that can capture up to 650 shots with a full charge and a 3-inch HVGA flip-up touchscreen.

We spent a few minutes poking around the mini's menu system and taking some sample shots (which we were required to leave behind). The camera performed well, with speedy focusing and accurate exposure (based on reviewing images on the LCD). It's hardly the fastest mirrorless ILC on the market, but Samsung's making no such claim -- performance was what we'd expect from an entry-level model. Both the 9mm (24.3mm equivalent) f/3.5 pancake lens and 9-27mm (24.3-72.9mm) f/3.5-5.6 zoom are incredibly compact and lightweight. With the prime lens attached, the mini will fit in a jacket pocket. There's also a 17mm (45.9mm) f/1.8 lens in the works, which should ship in July. The camera, meanwhile, will be available black, white, brown, green and pink sometime next month. A 17mm kit will retail for $450 while a version with the zoom lens instead (that also includes a tiny external flash) will be available for $550. Both pairings ship with a free copy of Adobe Lightroom 5.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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drag2share: Oppo Find 7 is the world's first phone that can take 50MP photos (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/19/oppo-find-7-50mp-camera/

We've seen the teasers and we've seen the leaks, so it's about time to see the real thing. Oppo has finally unveiled the Find 7 in Beijing just now, and as promised, this Android 4.3 device really can take 50-megapixel photos! But as with many things in life, there's a catch here: the sensor is actually a 13-megapixel Sony IMX214 CMOS, so it's a software trick. Still, the results we saw earlier were surprisingly good, so read on to check out how it's done and what the rest of the phone is like.

The Find 7 comes with Oppo's latest image signal processor dubbed Pure Image 2.0, and this is what enables the 50-megapixel "Super Zoom" creation: the camera takes 10 consecutive shots very quickly, and then it automatically picks four best shots to combine them into a 50-megapixel still. Our 8,160 x 6,120 sample shots ended up being around 10MB large each, and as you can see above, there's a lot of detail preserved even up close, which puts the Xperia Z1's 20-megapixel camera to shame. While Super Zoom is a software-based feature, the 1/3.06-inch IMX214 sensor also deserves credit for its 480 megapixel-per-second bandwidth, which is 33 percent faster than the 13-megapixel CMOS chip on the Find 5. And of course, the bright f/2.0 aperture helps, too.

Other notable camera features include 4K video recording at 30 fps, slow-motion video at up to 100 fps, long exposure for up to 32 seconds, HDR-capable GIF creation and RAW mode. You'll also be able to use some of these features with the 5-megapixel f/2.0 front-facing camera.

The 5.5-inch Find 7 will come in two versions. The $499 Find 7a (aka Find 7 Lite in China) packs a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a 2,800mAh battery and a 1080p display. The more premium $599 Find 7 features a faster 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 3,000mAh cell plus a quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) display. This makes Oppo the second manufacturer to offer a quad HD phone, following sister company Vivo's Xplay 3S.

Apart from the above points plus the different back covers (the Find 7's has a carbon fiber texture), the two models are otherwise identical. You get Gorilla Glass 3, microSD expansion (up to 128GB), micro-SIM slot, LTE radio (for Chinese, European and US models; 3G only for Indonesian model), a pulsing "skyline" notification light underneath the chin, award-winning MaxxAudio plus Dirac HD audio enhancement and "VOOC" rapid charging (you go from zero to 75 percent in just half an hour). About the last point, you apparently won't have to worry about potential heat issues while charging, as the Find 7 is built with five layers of thermal protective coating, and the solid titanium-aluminum alloy frame -- crafted with nano-injection molding -- also helps dissipate heat.

The Find 7 will be shipped with Color OS 1.2 based on Android 4.3, and it'll come with many familiar features that are already on the N1. These include weather animation on the home screen, gesture shortcuts (including torch and camera activation even when the screen is off) and themes. Do look up our N1 review if you want to know more about Oppo's custom ROM. At the time of publishing this article, we have yet to hear any news about CyanogenMod development for the Find 7, so stay tuned.

Interested folks outside China can order a Find 7a both online and offline come mid-April (there will be a $50 early bird discount from some retailers), or you can wait for the advanced Find 7 due May or June. If you happen to be in Beijing, CEO Tony Chen will be personally selling some units in one of the local shops tomorrow. Now that's a hands-on boss.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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